Roundabout Vancouver

What would a metropolis in the Pacific Northwest look like if urban planners at the turn of the twentieth century had recognized and exploited the spatial potential of old-growth trees rather than their resource potential? Employing techniques of photomontage and urban mapping, we have proposed an anachronistic detour that decouples empirical fact from historical memory.

While in the present city of Vancouver, the center space of traffic roundabouts is given over to various sanctioned treatments—community gardens, a monumental rock, and so on—in this “retroprojective” proposal an alternative vision of the not-so-distant past is offered, one in which forward-thinking city planners leave an old-growth tree in the middle of each future roundabout.

With this simple gesture, we can envisage an entirely different city, one in which massive trees are no longer a rarity but instead fundamentally define and shape our movement through the urban fabric of Vancouver. While the singular presence of each tree is in itself remarkable, their collective existence is a legacy comparable in size and density to that of Stanley Park, Vancouver’s beloved urban green space. With this action on the civic imagination, the city becomes a forest, and the forest a city.

Goodweather is an interdisciplinary design collective based in Vancouver, Canada.

Formally established in 2012, Goodweather is both an operating platform and alias, functioning as a ‘nom-de-plûme’ that permits work to be undertaken in a diverse field of creative engagements; from self-initiated works to collaborative projects, from private commissions to commercial work and design destined for industry or the public sphere. Drawing primarily on a background in architecture, but recognizing that contemporary design demands an interlacing of associated practices, Goodweather operates within and among a number of allied fields including architecture, design and fabrication.

Scenario Journal

Scenario Journal is an online project focused on the next generation of urban landscapes. Scenario seeks to create a free and accessible platform for showcasing conversations across disciplines that spark collaboration, rethink urban landscape performance, and lay down a framework for design innovation.

Scenario Journal is an independant nonprofit organization, and is generously supported by PennDesign, the journal’s primary academic design affiliation.